The Size of the Risk: Histories of Multiple Use in the Great Basin. By Leisl Carr Childers.

Abstract

The Size of the Risk: Histories of Multiple Use in the Great Basin. By Leisl Carr Childers. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. x + 314 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.) In this timely volume, Leisl Carr Childers traces the development of multiple use as a management philosophy rooted in the “notion that all land must have an identity and a utility” (p. 7). By the early twentieth century, the arid Great Basin had confounded federal laws intended to privatize public lands. With no clear identity as farmland, forest, or park, the region was perceived as a “wasteland.” Multiple use emerged as an expedient way to give the unclaimed public domain a utility. … greg.smoak{at}utah.edu